[TriEmbed] In need of a tiny, cheap, powerful(ish) computer

[Adam Haile]

Yeah... I think I'll look into seeing if I can integrate numpy in any way.
The problem I've run into with numpy is on Windows. When trying to install
via pip, it always gives the dreaded vcvarsall.bat error and then you have
to go an install the microsoft python compiler package to get it to work.
Another option is to manually download a precompiled WHL file
<http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#numpy>, but most users don't
find that. And I hate dependencies :P But I'm cool with making it an option
thing for the sake of speed... fortunately, python is flexible enough where
I could probably make it auto-detect and then just use the correct version
if numpy is installed.

On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Carl Nobile <carl.nobile at gmail.com> wrote:

> I install everything in a virtual environment then use pip to install
> everything. This keeps one apps install separate from another's. For
> instance one app can use python 3.4 and another use 2.7.4.
>
> Pip should pull down all of numpy's dependencies. Don't use the machine's
> install with most Python packages. Now scipy is a pain to install even with
> pip. There are circular dependencies between numpy and scipy.
>
> You may want to see if the RPi can handle the work when using numpy, just
> to see. This may give you other options.
>
> ~Carl
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 9:49 PM, Adam Haile <adammhaile at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I do where I can right now... but numpy is a non-trivial install on some
>> systems (in my experience). Something not worth it for the majority of
>> users since most probably don't use more than a couple hundred LEDs, if
>> that.
>>
>> I may need to find a way to come up with an optional numpy version...
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 9:45 PM, Carl Nobile <carl.nobile at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Adam,
>>>
>>> Doing it in pure python may be the issue. Use the numpy package it does
>>> matrix math extremly fast. If you're flipping pixels around then you will
>>> get an unbelievable speed increase with numpy.
>>>
>>> ~Carl
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 9:39 PM, Adam Haile via TriEmbed <
>>> triembed at triembed.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> It's all CPU. There's usually less than 100MB RAM usage. And yup, 24/7
>>>> operation.
>>>> I'm already using nothing but single byte math (with a tiny few float
>>>> exceptions) and have optimized the heck out of it with a couple of
>>>> performance profilers. Pretty much it comes down to doing hundreds of
>>>> thousands of pixel operations per second all in pure python, with no GPU
>>>> acceleration... this is because my "display" is large LED matrices. So,
>>>> admittedly, not the best for performance... but I'm also doing way more
>>>> than users of my library would generally ever try.
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 5:01 PM, John Vaughters <jvaughters04 at yahoo.com
>>>> > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> >Forget I mentioned the video thing... Pi is not fast enough
>>>>> regardless.
>>>>>
>>>>> Right, so the pi lacks memory and processing power.
>>>>>
>>>>> I guess the question is what is your application wanting? Are you
>>>>> swaping memory? or is the Processor pegged? Or both?
>>>>>
>>>>> Do you need 24/7 on time?
>>>>>
>>>>> Is it your software that you can change to optimize your system? You
>>>>> mentioned speed over cores; software changes can possibly fix these
>>>>> problems.
>>>>>
>>>>> Finding sub $150 computers in the x86 family is going to be tough
>>>>> unless you want a used laptop. But even then, laptops running 24/7 are not
>>>>> the most reliable.
>>>>>
>>>>> I guess my suggestion would be to try to figure out what the hold up
>>>>> is in your application and system if you want to get the cost to it's
>>>>> lowest. Or just try the used laptop route.
>>>>>
>>>>> John Vaughters
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Triangle, NC Embedded Computing mailing list
>>>> TriEmbed at triembed.org
>>>> http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org
>>>> TriEmbed web site: http://TriEmbed.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Carl J. Nobile (Software Engineer)
>>> carl.nobile at gmail.com
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Carl J. Nobile (Software Engineer)
> carl.nobile at gmail.com
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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